Interview 1327 – Jeffrey Tucker Bids Farewell to Net Neutrality
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Jeffrey Tucker of FEE.org joins us again to discuss his latest article, “Goodbye Net Neutrality; Hello Competition.” We explore the details of the net neutrality discussion that is being ignored by nearly everyone, including how the corporatocracy actually favours net neutrality and how government regulation of the internet is precisely what is keeping prices high and access to the market restricted for would-be competitors.
SHOW NOTES:
Goodbye Net Neutrality; Hello Competition
Tom Wheeler, Former Lobbyist and Obama Fundraiser, Tapped to Lead FCC
Net Neutrality is necessary regulation as a short-term emergency fix to previous bad regulation
Net “Neutrality,†or, How To Regulate the Internet to Thunderous Applause
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My modest and oh too hasty single viewing normal person’s take on this interview:
“In the pocket of Comcast” Ex-FCC “Mercedes-Divide” Micheal Powell comes to mind.
“Deregulation of the media” sounded so good but finally translated, as I vaguely recall, as the exponential monopolization of the Media into the clutches of a handful of powerhouses (the very same handful that largely controls most of the European media as well?).
So deregulation didn’t stimulate competition in that context. It certainly didn’t seem to serve the common interest, but rather those of the media megaconglomerates.
So deregulation for powerful giants can result in restricting choice for “the people”.
(like Obama’s deregulation or regulation of Presidential powers?)
Tucker argues that net neutrality, in the form of regulation, Price control, imposes conditions that only the biggest, wealthiest existing players could fulfill, pushing out new and/or smaller players, restricting competition, innovation, offers and prices etc…
So regulation for powerful giants can result in restricting choice for “the people”.
As Mr. Corbett and his guests have amply demonstrated “Sustainability” does not spell longevity for the human race (but the rapid birth of the Artificially Intelligent TransHuman at Man’s expense?)
As usual, Branding is everything.
How can you be against “sustainability”?
How can you be against “loosening the rules”?
How can you be against “Neutrality”?
How can you be against “Technical Progress”
We’ll be definitively neutralized once we’re all caught in the Net…
?
Oh damn! I forgot to mention that
if Trump is for it
then the average politically correct consumer is supposed to be Against it.
Perhaps if Trump is promoting it, (like he supposedly promotes climate skepticism)
it’s ’cause THEY, TPTSB, want everyone to fight for their Net Neutrality (not male, not female, not black, not white, not rich, not poor, not homo, not hetero
but NEUTRAL (sounds like EQUAL)
playing, through elementary reverse psychology, into the hands of afore-mentioned PTSB…
?
errr… was that…clear?
or just paranoid…?
?
Wow I am completely confused. I’ve been ZAPPED!
The argument goes back to libertarianism. There are many forms of libertarianism.
Anarcho-libertarianism can be easily debunked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43uoAX3gMYI
What many of us want is libertarian socialism, and it is not an oxymoron.
Anarcho capitalism has delivered to us the large, monolithic corporations that make their own law. They do so by controlling the government that is supposed to regulate them. Buy legislation, like ALEC does. The Congressman rarely read the bills written by the transnational corporate politicians, they simply pass them for election money or bribes. The government exists to protect capitalism under capitalism and to assure little or no democracy. It does not exist to protect you.
Capital, as Marx noted, seeks profit and more capital. This will always mean that small anarcho libertarian capitalists will seek profit through buy-outs, mergers, carteling, monopoly, what we see now.
Anarcho capitalists believe that selfishness is a virtue, as did Ayn Rand who died collecting Social Security and medicare. If selfishness is a virtue, then there is no authority that can be made to stop me, if I am an anarcho capitalist, from doing anything I wish as long as it is not force.
Adam Smith warned us about capitalism. A good reread might be advised. Smith was not an anarcho capitalist.
Smith feared what we have now, a profit seeking system that becomes monopolized, both subjectively and objectively.
Anarcho capitalists support the Koch Brothers, the Walton Family, Bill Gates (though many would oppose Gates’eugenics as non voluntary force), Jeff Bezo, Warren Buffet and more of this ilk.
No, the idea of returning to a flea market society, that never existed, free of exploitation and authority if we could only embrace anarcho libertarianism, is proposed to both confuse and justify the system we see today.
Yep, if you think that capitalism or anarcho capitalism works, take a look at the top ten arguments put forth by anarcho capitalists and you will see they have no logic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI6a7WySFsU
I am a libertarian, but I am a libertarian socialist. And no, the position is not oxymoron. Libertarian socialists are against State control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIfKrI6Q_W8
Yeah, I had developed that same personal belief: “NEUTRAL (sounds like EQUAL)” when I briefly considered the subject. My central thought was that if everyone paid for the same availability of world-wide connectivity, this was a good thing because the scope of service was available to everyone. Obviously that was a myopic view.
Without a user-pay model based upon actual personal usage, then casual users pay exorbitantly when compared with power users. The imposition of monthly data limits partially addressed this, however there is no carry-over of unused data usage against future usage. The low-end user is still left paying too much.
The usual suspects have always been slyly mentioned as the bad guys, suggesting large corporations would get their internet at better broadband speeds than the plebes (presumably because these corporations would bid more for this). That didn’t take into account that any internet backbone expansion would be effectively financed by these mega-usage corporations that required the additional capacity.
My experience with public utilities and single-market monopolies is that they, like the banks, introduce more fees (opague administration costs) while holding up a pretense of reduced consumer usage pricing, which can be ‘sort of’ verified by the consumer through their own meter readings. I just want a fair price for proportionate usage, and tools for self-regulation of that usage that translate into controllable cost.
Anyway, this interview challenged my previous assumptions. Jeffrey Tucker communicates well, although I sense we have some philosophical differences but these don’t necessarily concern the meaning of net neutrality, or the advisability of the deregulation of internet service.
I went away doing other things, and when I came back and re-read my post I saw a need for better clarity in definitions. Before people can properly rant on the subject they must clearly understand the terms and concepts.
1º, what does ‘net neutrality’ really mean?
2º, what was the intent of the Title II legislation of 2015?
3º, what is the potential impact of ‘deregulation of internet service’?
The more I learn, the more I feel deceived by the original posing of the terminology.
And thanks, stee, for that link to the current FCC position. It bears reading, but at the risk in all such publications: useful for the insomnolent trying to stay away from any medication..
Net Neutrality is a disaster. The better the name of the legislation the scarier it is.
https://youtu.be/ZUOQebHDkeg
Net Neutrality: What You Absolutely Need to Know and What No One’s Telling You
https://youtu.be/0kkaY5lJLMk
They still don’t get it. The hordes and throngs of sycophantic net lemmings who’ve been conned into thinking that this insane legislation is necessary. That there’s anything neutral about this net overreaching, in fact — I repeat — it re-categorizes the once free and untethered and unfettered Internet as a UTILITY!
https://youtu.be/3QPt66tcTZM
surely it’s not as black and white as proclaimed…
where is the link to the actual fcc proposal in the show notes? tssk tssk
http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db1122/DOC-347927A1.pdf
oh 210 pages, never mind 🙂
I have Verizon (Frontier) FiberOptic 75/75. I could get faster speeds, but it would cost another $10 monthly. My monthly cost is $64.99 plus Texas Sales Tax of $3.20 = $68.19 I am now on a month-to-month, no contract.
I only have internet. They try to sell you a bundle package with TV & and on-demand movies. I won’t do it. I just want the lowest price I can get for viable internet service. I don’t do Hulu nor Netflix nor any other “subscription”.
Previous to August 2017, I was on a two year contract with Verizon. My net cost was about $2 cheaper monthly than now. It was a “bundled” package which I got when they had a promotional offering. They bundled a hard wire phone line into my internet service. I told them I didn’t need a phone line, but it would cost me more not to have it. What is interesting, is that there were other taxes, surcharges, and “recovery fees” associated with the phone line ($8.26 monthly). And yet, my net cost was cheaper than what I am now paying.
Different towns/cities in Texas typically have a choice between two providers. Verizon(Frontier) or Comcast(Spectrum) cable in my area. Sometimes the choice is between AT&T and one of the two previously mentioned.
Verizon internet service is now “Frontier Communications”. About a year ago or more, Frontier bought it. The transition was nightmarish as Frontier’s administration/customer service was in chaos.
I priced the Cable rates which are comparable to Verizon. Again, they try to upgrade you to TV. Cable uses a large satellite dish, and years ago when I had them I realized that Texas Storms will mess up your service.
A few years ago, I thought of collaborating with neighbors on WiFi, but I am worried about bandwidth and someone playing games. One neighbor’s WiFi ID is “Hillary’s Emails”… …I’m sure we would get along. I even toyed with ideas of how to channel the Library’s WiFi about a mile away.
Subscription services like the internet, electric, water, sewage, gas, trash, phone… I hate these. Every household is sucked in. Sucked in until you die or get off the grid. And their revenue must be ungodly.
“One neighbor’s WiFi ID is “Hillary’s Emailsâ€â€¦ …I’m sure we would get along.”
That is SO funny! Kudos to your neighbour! 😉
As for the comm providers (sat or not): You have to be no Einstein to see that they are the ones that will profit the most in the next years, especially in the US where the cord cutting appears to be accelerating.
Hence the AT&T/TimeWarner deal…
As for subscriptions: Some of them are optional but we here in Germany HAVE to actually pay for being able to receive state propaganda, regardless if you actually have a TV, radio or computer/smartphone!
210 Euros per year per household plus all the companies (depending on the number of employees) equal several billions of Euros to sustain the most expensive state-run TV propaganda system in the world, that doesn’t educate but only manipulates and dumbs down the population, just like the “transatlantically-steered” government wants.
Not that ad-financed TV channels are better here either…
Lots of flats for rent also come with an obligatory cable fee (mine is 11 Euros/month) that you can’t get rid of without leaving the flat entirely – so I’m already spending 342 Euros/year without having a choice, completely independent of consumption!
And if you argue that I could rent a different flat: Good luck finding one in Germany for the same or lower price! We now have a shortage of around 1 million homes right – thanks to our “new citizens” and the people planning with scarcity to milk more money from the people that are still able to pay!
It’s clear as day: The middle class is losing what is left of its humble “wealth” in the next years!
If you buy a decent access point, it will have some QOS (quality of service) settings which should allow a fair share of available bandwidth to everyone. People who tend to game don’t do it on wireless (or at least try not to) because it introduces even more lag to the connection, thus making their gaming less competitive, which can be a real time killer depending on the game genre.
Long range (several miles) wireless networks are fairly simple to setup as well. All that is needed is a decent wireless adapter with a directional antenna.
The tough part is to get the people to play nice.
Federal Reserve is a private company that serves Wall Street and the Banksters. The internet was meant to be a distributed platform where information etc was free and accessible. I have watched as that reality has turned into garbage as the internet became commercialized. The fact that local cities and towns cannot own and operate there own locally control system, as the FCC trumps all local plans shows that Pai’s proposal is nothing but a wolf in sheep’s clothes.
There should be no commercialization of the net. When PBS allowed corporate sponsers the PBS News became worthless, when Regan cut back funds to the California Universities so that the likes of BP provide money and harvest the work of unpaid students and patent their work is really the game that is going with the internet. Just another version of the Rockefeller JP Morgan etal all over again.
bharani,
I seem to remember a Corbett Report episode which talked about a community that did become its own internet provider.
Corbett often emphasizes decentralized, more local control as our pathway forward.
You might use the Corbett “search bar” for “solutions” plus keywords.
I agree, any monetization of the internet means the large cartels win.
Thank you for your thoughts. Some thoughts:
1. Community owned/operated ISPs in USA are currently on hold pending a court case. Sorry I have deleted that info and couldn’t find it at present.
2. Let us look at free speech as a model for thinking about open Internet. The supreme court ruled that corporate speech was entitled to all the protections of the constitution ( Citizens United v. FEC). This is the underlying logic behind an Internet that charges for services.
3. Think cell phones. Initially the prices were affordable. Now cell phones are getting quite pricey as users can’t live without their cell phones. I don’t see the internet being any different.
Lastly a fully FREE as in FREEDOM of information and exchange of ideas will be throttled by ISPs. They will be the gate keepers of information. Only that which is approved and supports the corporate reality will be passed through. Think CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations), only substitute P ( people ) for the Animals. Cities will be the CAFOs for humans where their food, psychological and emotional inputs will be controlled in as many ways as possible. Just like animals.
Again thanks all of you for your thoughts. Love the work everyone does here.
Never heard so much drivel from a Corbett Report guest…ever!
Here, let me add this to the Hijacked Language episode,
mind control words like “free market” = managed market.
Jeffrey Tucker actually believes that getting rid of “net neutrality” will somehow be better for us the consumer, I mean really? So this guy believes the Internet should be regulated like cable TV eh? Where a 70 year old that does not consume as much Internet that a family with teenagers will opt for the slow lane instead, and somehow that’s more fair?
And what about the FCC trying to repeal the rule that stops ISP’s from blocking websites? Is he for this as well, because if they get rid of “net neutrality”, they will be blocking all kinds of websites.
Getting rid of “net neutrality” also means this guy is against the privacy order that requires Internet Service Providers getting permission before they can share sensitive information about us, and that included our web browsing history.
This guy, Jeffrey Tucker, is Ok with ISP’s being able to sell our data (browsing history) and use it to grow their online advertising businesses, and that’s how it may become more competitive or cheaper for a while by off setting the cost with the increased advert revenue, but then, after a few years or so, after they consolidate and buy up the smaller start ups, they’ll ramp up the prices again, and still profit from our data.
Thanks Jeffrey Tucker, you shill.
I once thought I was beginning to understand this issue, but now I’m backsliding with all the conflicting information I’m running into. Sheesh, more clarity, please. At present I’m making time to read through the actual legislation in fits and stops, hoping to find some logical basis to build my conceptual framework upon.
I am not a typical Corbeteer here, with a more skeptical view of “free markets” – not sure such an animal exists – and even the concept of “freedom” as I sometimes hear it used here, but I certainly have nothing better to offer most of the time. And I too want to become even freer and want my children to know freedom.
We are faced with the choice between big managed bullies, managed by bigger bullies, and more competitive would-be bullies, allowed to compete to be the future bullies.
I suppose the latter provides a few more cracks in the edifice in which sincere people can do some good things.
In the meantime, we are still alive even without the internet and so far remain free of
robot sex
Nov 21, 2017 Article
The Citizens of Detriot Are Building Their Own Internet
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a13819941/the-citizens-of-detriot-are-building-their-own-internet/
May 2016
The Town That Made Its Own Internet – In Greenfield, Massachusetts, 40 percent of the town’s residents didn’t have access to Internet, so the mayor hired someone to build a cheap system of its own.
https://psmag.com/news/the-town-that-made-its-own-internet
I could have swore that Corbett once talked about a town creating its own internet.
We sure did:
http://mediamonarchy.com/2016/08/nwnw279-audio/
Great article HRS,
Did you happen to read the comment below the article? It goes something like this…
…”Low prices are enjoyed because there’s no CEOs to pay, no executives to pay, no marketing fees, etc… LOL… Isn’t this the definition of socialism? I’ll bet the internet corporations HATE this idea!”
Socialism Definition: a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
Yep, those people living in Greenfield, Massachusetts, are socialists 🙂
Good point. I had the same reaction.
But to be fair, local, small private and relatively unregulated capitalist enterprises are also humaine, inspiring and efficient. Either “system,” socialist or capitalist, will tend to become oppressive as they grow to where their power center is removed from those affected by decisions. That is the birth of an elite in either system. And elites are happy to run and own either system. Once they do it is neither capitalist nor socialist. It is slavery.
Elites love centralized control of necessities. Any effort that decentralizes control is good in my book. Whether by a “socialist” proactive local government, duly elected by an informed citizenry, or by self interested entrepreneurs working to provide resources locally that free people from large governments and monopolies.
Elites love centralized control of necessities. Any effort that decentralizes control is good in my book.
john.o,
The Internet is both centralized and decentralized at the same time.
Let me explain this paradox…
1) The physical infrastructure of the Internet is run by Internet Service Providers. They build the roads so to speak, and these ISP’s can either be corporations like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile etc…, or some ISP’s can be run by local town governments, much like the citizens of Greenfield Massachusetts.
2) Then there are major tech companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, that use the “roads” the ISP’s have built, in order to collect and sell our data to advertisers and to others, making these companies insanely wealthy, yet this part of the Internet would still be considered decentralized. (even-though some of us are trying hard to free ourselves from these mega corporations)
3) The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) sets the rules and regulations as to how our data is collected. So this Federal agency would be the “centralized” part of the Internet.
Therefore, it doesn’t matter if ISP’s are run by socialists or capitalists, either way, both are subject to the same FCC rules and regulations.
You said: “Elites love centralized control of necessities” — and that’s exactly why big Internet/Cable companies are pushing to abolish “net neutrality”, and this is also why smaller ISP start ups companies support “net neutrality”.
By getting rid of “net neutrality”
1) ISP’s will no longer be required to get explicit permission from subscribers before sharing “sensitive” information, such as our browsing history, our app usage, our location etc…
2) ISP’s could begin blocking and/or filtering certain websites/applications
3) ISP’s could begin offering “fast lanes” to their partners, creating an unfair advantage. (free market, pfft!)
In a real Free Market, we the consumer would get paid cold hard ca$h, by both the ISP’s and tech giants, for willfully (consent) allowing “our data” to be sold and shared to third party’s.
Wow, seems to be a really intensely discussed topic. Can’t remember having seen such a bad like/dislike-ratio on a corbett youtube-video.
Happy to see Rick Falkvinge being featured through an article.
My stand is, when we have to deal with any government apparatus or agencies like the FCC, it is about power play, never about ‘the good’ for ‘the people’. Anything good may far more likely come about accidentally, not on purpose.
(And as such I simply observe this and don’t start to argue what the FCC should do.)
E.g. in Germany the bus travel deregulation (real deregulation) a couple of years ago. (Pretty much the only good thing I can remember in my lifetime here which came about through politics.)
Mielia
This seems to be a real hot topic for people. I simply posted the link to the original article and people jumped down my throat almost immediately. Whether I agree with everything this interviewee said I found the new perspective enlightening. I guess others do not share that feeling…